THE obvious design of this work is to present the Botanist, Farmer, Gardener, and Country Housekeeper, with a 

 compendium of Botanical, Agricultural, and Medical knowledge, collected from the accumulated labours of the most 

 eminent authors, and hitherto only to be obtained in separate and very voluminous publications. 



From the Introduction, which immediately follows this Preface, the Botanist will at once perceive that the Linnean 

 Arrangement is exclusively adopted, not merely because it is most universal, but because, (to adopt the language of the 

 present acute and learned president of the Linnean Society, Sir J. E. Smith, M.D. F.R.S.) " Without wasting any words 

 on those speculative and fanciful changes, which the most ignorant may easily make in an artificial system ; and without 

 entering into controversy with the very few competent writers who have proposed any alterations, the discriminating 

 characters of the Linnean System are founded in nature and fact, and depend upon parts essential to every species of 

 plant, when in perfection ; and as the application of them to practice is, above all other systems, easy and intelligible ; 

 nothing more useful can be done, than to perfect, upon our own principles, any parts of this system, which experience may 

 shew to have been originally defective. Speculative alterations in an artificial system, are endless, and scarcely answer 

 any more useful purpose than changing the order of letters in an alphabet. The philosophy of botanical arrangement, or 

 the study of the natural affinities of plants, is quite another matter." 



The general exemplifications of the Introduction to which the Essay on the Physiology of Plants, in the second 

 Volume, forms an important supplement are followed by an Analysis illustrating the Linnean System of Classification, 

 and by Rules for Investigation, intended to " explain and apply to practice those beautiful principles of method, 

 arrangement, and discrimination, which render Botany not merely an amusement, a motive for taking air and exercise, 

 or an assistance to many other arts and sciences ; but a school for the mental powers, an alluring incitement for the 

 young mind to try its growing strength, and a confirmation of the most enlightened understanding in some of its 

 sublimest and most important truths." The explanatory Plates which exhibit the various kinds of Leaves, Trunks, Roots, 

 Armature of Plants, and more especially those which present the Parts of Fructification, the Classes and Orders of the 

 Sexual System, with the Dictionary of Botanical Terms, will gradually introduce the young student into the midst of this 

 delightful science : and lest he should there find himself bewildered, the Introduction closes with succinct Instructions 

 bow he is to ascertain to what Class, Order, Genus, or Section, any known or strange plant he may meet with belongs ; 

 an assistance to which will be found in the Index to the Classes and Orders at the close of the second Volume.* 

 To avoid also any perplexity which might arise from the Specific Character not being here printed in a different letter 

 from the general description of each plant, and to account for any apparent repetitions, the reader will only have to bear in 

 mind, that the specific character is always contained in the first sentence, under the name of each plant; what follows 

 being superadded description, or directions for their culture. The notes of interrogation imply that the parts of the plants 

 to which they are subjoined require further investigation, not having yet been perfectly described. 



The foreign names of many plants, and, as far as could be ascertained, the habitats, or exact places of growth, where 

 those that occur wild in our own country may be found, have been minutely recorded, as they always should be by every 

 lover of Botany ; the former for the accommodation of those who may take the UNIVERSAL HERBAL abroad; and the 

 latter, to facilitate the researches of those who botanize at home : to both of whom it is strongly recommended to inter- 

 leave their copies in the binding, that their own observations, additions, or corrections, may be noted in their proper order, 

 for their individual use. Such persons also as have preferred the plain plates, may find an elegant amusement in occa- 

 sionally colouring them at their leisure from nature. 



* Se also the " Table of Genera," published in the Appendix to (bis work. 



